Last updated: August 20, 2026
Yes. Accepting a rebooked flight does not cancel your right to compensation. Under UK261 and EU261 you can still claim €250 to €600 (£220 to £520) if the replacement flight landed three or more hours late at your final destination and the disruption was within the airline’s control. Check your claim free with SkyRefund’s flight compensation checker.
This is the most common reason passengers walk away from money they are owed. The airline hands you a new boarding pass, you arrive eventually, and it feels like the matter is closed. Legally it is not. The rebooking and the compensation are two separate obligations.
No. Offering you a replacement flight is the airline complying with the law, not settling with you. Under UK261 and EU261, an airline that cancels your flight or denies you boarding must re-route you. That duty stands on its own. The separate fixed compensation payment exists because you lost time, and European courts have consistently held that passengers who arrive three or more hours late suffer the same loss whether they were held on the original aircraft or moved onto another.
Airlines would rarely refuse these claims outright. But they can discourage them.
| What you are told | What the law says |
|---|---|
| "You accepted the new flight, so you waived your rights." | No such waiver exists in UK261 or EU261. Accepting re-routing exercises a right, it doesn't surrender one. |
| "The rebooking was the remedy. Nothing more is owed." | Re-routing and compensation are separate rights. Providing one doesn't discharge the other. |
| "You signed a form at the desk." | Airport forms generally only confirm you accepted the alternative flight. |
| "You took a voucher, so the claim is settled." | Meal and hotel vouchers never affect it. A voucher for a futures flights with the airline can. |
| "It was extraordinary circumstances." | The airline must prove it. Crew shortages, airline staff strikes and routine technical faults don't qualify. |
It depends on why you were moved. Five situations cover almost every rebooking, and they don't all work the same way
| Compensation likely? | How you were rebooked | The test that decides it |
|---|---|---|
| Yes | Flight cancelled, airline put you on another | Under 14 days' notice, and the new flight missed the timing windows below |
| Yes | Denied boarding due to overbooking | You did not volunteer to be bumped |
| Yes | Long delay, moved onto a different flight | You arrived 3+ hours late at your final destination |
| No | Airline changed the schedule weeks in advance | More than 14 days' notice given |
| No | You volunteered to give up your seat | You agreed to it |
Regardless of the flight's eligibility, you always have a right to care provided by the airline.
If your flight was cancelled and you were rebooked, the notice period decides everything.
| Compensation | Notice given | The replacement flight must |
|---|---|---|
| None | More than 14 days before | No conditions apply |
| None if both met | 7 to 14 days before | Depart under 2 hours early, arrive under 4 hours late |
| None if both met | Under 7 days before | Depart under 1 hour early, arrive under 2 hours late |
If the replacement falls outside those windows, compensation is due. This is where most valid claims sit, and where most passengers assume they have none.
If you were involuntarily denied boarding because the flight was overbooked, compensation is owed even though the airline put you on the next departure. The airline may halve it if the alternative got you there within 2 hours on short-haul, 3 on medium-haul or 4 on long-haul. Halved compensation is still worth claiming.
Keep in mind that you're eligible for compensation if you didn't voluntarily give up your seat.
The amount is fixed by distance, not by your ticket price or what the disruption cost you.
| 3+ hours | Distance | Example flight |
|---|---|---|
| £220 (€250) | Under 1,500 km | London Gatwick → Alicante (1,432 km) |
| £350 (€400) | 1,500 – 3,500 km | Paris → Athens (2,109 km) |
| £350 (€400) | Over 3,500 km (within EU) | Tenerife → Helsinki (4,741 km) |
| £520 (€600) | Over 3,500 km (departing EU or UK) | London Heathrow → New York (5,540 km) |
Under EU261, a flight entirely within the EU stays in the £350 (€400) band even above 3,500 km, and UK261 has no equivalent rule. One further qualification applies if you were re-routed: if the replacement still arrived under 2 hours late on short-haul, 3 on medium-haul or 4 on long-haul, the airline may halve the payment. Halved compensation is still owed.
The delay is measured when the aircraft door opens at your final destination, not when the replacement took off. A rebooked flight that leaves an hour late but connects badly can still push you past the three-hour threshold, and the whole journey counts if it was booked as a single reservation.
Signing something. Not accepting the flight, not taking a sandwich, not using the hotel room. Those are your right to care, owed whatever else happens.
The risk is a document describing itself as a settlement, release, or waiver of further claims, often bundled with a voucher worth far less than your entitlement. Read anything you are asked to sign and photograph it first. Even then, a release signed under pressure without being told what you were giving up can often be challenged.
Yes, though the rules and the sums change. One difference matters more than the rest.
Under UK261 and EU261, accepting a replacement flight never affects your compensation. Under Saudi Arabia's GACA rules it does: once you accept the replacement, denied-boarding compensation is no longer owed, and the airline is exempt altogether if the alternative departs within two hours of the original. Delay compensation may still apply if the new flight lands three or more hours late, and refusing re-routing instead entitles you to 200% of the unused ticket value.
| Regulation | Applies when | Compensation | Deadline to claim |
|---|---|---|---|
| GACA (Saudi Arabia) | Departing Saudi Arabia, or arriving on a Saudi carrier | 50 – 150 SDR (€61 – €183 / £52 – £156), by delay length | None specified |
| SHY (Türkiye) | Departing Türkiye, or a Turkish airline | €100 (£88) domestic, up to €600 (£520) international | Not set by SHY |
| APPR (Canada) | To, from or within Canada | CA$400 – CA$1,000 for delay; from CA$900 for denied boarding | 1 year |
| ANAC (Brazil) | To, from or within Brazil | Denied boarding only: 250 SDR domestic, 500 SDR international | 5 years |
Some routes trigger two regimes at once. London Heathrow to Riyadh (4,940 km) falls under both UK261 and GACA. You can only claim under one, and working out which gives you the stronger case takes knowing both sets of rules. Our claim specialists handle that assessment for you
Let's breakdown the steps of claiming compensation after accepting a rebooked flight.
Identify which regulation covers your route, then confirm your actual arrival delay at your final destination and how much notice the airline gave you. The flight compensation calculator does the maths for you.
You need your original booking confirmation, the boarding pass for the replacement flight, any email or SMS about the change, expense receipts, and anything you signed at the airport.
Submit your claim to SkyRefund and the team handles the airline, the evidence and the escalation for you.
You can be owed up to £520 compensation
Two situations rule out a claim:
Extraordinary circumstances. These are events outside the airline's control that it could not have avoided, and flights disrupted by them aren't eligible for compensation. Two things often mistaken for them are not: strikes by the airline's own crew, and technical faults that routine maintenance should have caught. Compensation is owed in both cases.
Even when extraordinary circumstances do apply, they only block the compensation payment. Your right to care and your right to be re-routed or refunded survive, so the airline still owes you meals, a hotel where needed, and a seat on another flight.
Goodwill vouchers. Vouchers for meals, drinks and accommodation don't waive anything. Those are your right to care, owed whatever else happens. A voucher for a future flight is different, because it counts as financial payment and accepting one can end your right to claim. Our experts advise reading anything you're asked to sign at the airport before accepting, since your compensation is often worth more than the voucher and isn't tied to booking again with the same airline.
With a 98% success rate, SkyRefund makes claiming flight compensation hassle-free, which is why it is trusted by over 1.6M passengers.
With over 9 years of legal experience, we help passengers worldwide exercise their rights and claim the compensation they are entitled to. SkyRefund works on a no-win, no-fee basis, and our standard fee is 35% of the total compensation amount.
To get started, you can use the flight compensation calculator. This makes it easy to see how much you could be entitled to without doing the hard maths, and once you have determined your eligibility, you can easily submit a claim and leave it in the hands of the SkyRefund team.
One Trustpilot reviewer was rebooked and got home several hours late, filed her claim from the airport while still waiting, and was awarded compensation. Filing early, as she did, also means the evidence is fresh and nothing has been thrown away.
Another passenger was denied boarding on an overbooked flight and called the outcome "the full compensation".
Yes. Accepting a rebooked flight does not waive your right to compensation under UK261 or EU261. Re-routing and compensation are two separate obligations for the airline. If the replacement flight arrived three or more hours late at your final destination and the cause was within the airline’s control, you can claim €250 to €600 (£220 to £520).
Usually not. Most airport forms simply confirm you accepted the alternative flight, which is not a settlement of your compensation claim. Only a document clearly stating that you release the airline from further claims can affect your entitlement, and even then it may be challengeable if you were not told what you were giving up.
It depends on the voucher. Meal, drink and hotel vouchers are part of your right to care and never affect your compensation. A voucher for a future flight is treated as financial payment, so accepting one can end your right to claim. Read the wording before you accept, and compare the voucher's value against what you're owed.
If the airline told you about the cancellation more than 14 days before departure, no compensation is due under UK261 or EU261, however inconvenient the new flight is. Inside 14 days, compensation depends on how far the replacement flight shifted your departure and arrival times.
No fixed compensation is due if you volunteered to give up your seat. In that situation you negotiate your own package with the airline, which might include vouchers, cash, an upgrade or a hotel. Ask what is on offer before agreeing, because involuntary denied boarding carries a fixed statutory payment instead.
In England, Wales and Northern Ireland you have 6 years from the date of the flight, and 5 years in Scotland. Time limits vary sharply elsewhere, and Canada allows just 1 year under APPR, so check the rule for the country your flight departed from. Claiming sooner is easier because the evidence is fresher.
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